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- author, Leandro Prazères*
- To roll, From BBC News Brasil to Brasilia
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President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) declared this Thursday (12/18) that he would veto the PL on dosimetry, approved on Wednesday by the Senate.
“With all respect for the National Congress, when it comes to my desk, I will veto it,” the president said during a breakfast with reporters.
The project, approved by 48 votes for and 25 against, reduces the sentences of people convicted of crimes linked to the actions of January 8, including former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
“People who committed a crime against Brazilian democracy will have to pay for the acts committed against this country.”
If indeed vetoed, Congress could still override Lula’s veto later.
“Congress has the right to do things, I have the right to veto, they have the right to override my veto,” Lula said.
If it comes to fruition, the project could benefit Bolsonaro and others convicted of attempted coup and crimes related to threats to the democratic rule of law.
Bolsonaro was sentenced in September by the Federal Court (STF) to 27 years and three months in prison for crimes of criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, damage to Union property and damage to listed property.
From now on, Bolsonaro could see the length of his sentence reduced under a closed regime: from 6 to 8 years currently to something between 2 years and 4 months and 4 years and 2 months, depending on the interpretation, calculates the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.
The project provides for the end of the sum of sentences for coup crimes and the abolition of the democratic rule of law, giving priority to the application of the most serious sentence — with a possible increase of a percentage of the sentence for the other crime, depending on the case.
This also allows for more rapid regime progression, that is, moving from prison to a semi-open or home regime after serving one-sixth of the sentence in cases that do not involve crimes against life.
Additionally, it allows for a one-third to two-thirds reduction in sentences when crimes are committed in crowds — a rule that would not apply to Bolsonaro, convicted of leading the attempted coup.
A Quaest poll published Wednesday shows that 47% of Brazilians disapprove of the bill, 24% are in favor of the text and 19% would like even weaker sanctions than those provided for in the proposal.
For 58% of those questioned, the project would aim to reduce Bolsonaro’s sentence; at 30%, the objective would be to reduce the sentences of all those guilty of acts of coup d’état.
Credit, Reuters
Among those who declare themselves Bolsonarists, 53% are in favor of even greater sentence reductions; 32% support the current proposal; and 10% are against the project.
Among those who consider themselves Lulists, 77% are against the project, 10% are in favor and only 4% are in favor of even greater sentence reductions.
The leader of the government in the Senate, Jacques Wagner (PT), declared on the social network
PT House leader Lindbergh Farias said on social media that “President Lula will block” the project.
Son of former President Jair Bolsonaro and chosen by his father to be PL candidate for the 2026 presidential election, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro celebrated the approval of the project — although he said the text was not “exactly what we wanted,” indicating that he wanted the processes that led to the convictions to be reversed, not just the reduction of sentences.
“Brazil has a chance to pacify itself and return to the normality of democracy,” Flávio Bolsonaro wrote in X.
“Jair Bolsonaro sacrificed himself so that dosimetry was approved and so that hundreds of people harmed on January 8 could resume their lives.”
Credit, JOEDSON ALVES/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
“The goodwill of Parliament is an opportunity”
For Luisa Ferreira, professor of law at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), the central problem of PL Dosimetry is not, in itself, the relaxation of the regime’s rules of progression, but the political context in which the proposal was constructed.
“I don’t think it’s a problem to relax the regime’s rules for progression given the prison situation in Brazil. On the contrary, we should discuss it for more crimes,” says the FGV professor, referring to the overcrowding of prisons.
“The problem is that Congress only mobilizes when the beneficiary of the rule has a first and last name, and without a serious study on this subject,” says Ferreira, emphasizing the interest of parliamentarians in benefiting Jair Bolsonaro.
According to the expert, the project follows a logic opposite to that which has historically guided Congress in matters of criminal law.
She remembers the anti-crime package proposed by the then Minister of Justice and now Senator Sergio Moro (União-PR), during the government of Jair Bolsonaro.
The package toughened penalties for several crimes and enjoyed broad support in Congress.
For criminal lawyer Guilherme Furniel, Dosimetria PL demonstrates “casual legislative benevolence”, which does not care about rethinking the prison system or the progression of sentences for the general population.
“What we have always witnessed is a hardening of criminal law, the creation of more crimes, more penalties, without a serious study of the consequences and results,” says the criminalist.
“This bill goes against what Congress has done for decades, to try to improve the legal situation for a specific group of convicted people.”
*With reporting by Iara Diniz and Mariana Alvim
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